Driving towards Success in the Air Force Cyber Mission: Leveraging Our Heritage to Shape Our Future
Abstract
Just a few decades ago, we viewed airpower primarily as rated aircrews operating combat aircraft and dropping bombs on targets. Today, it means so much more. For example, 16 of the 18 Airmen whose heroic accomplishments are highlighted in the latest edition of the Air Force chief of staff s Portraits in Courage are not flyers, and 15 are enlisted personnel. All of them, however, delivered airpower on the front lines of combat, whether driving convoys, disposing of explosive ordnance, providing security outside the wire, serving as instructors to Afghan and Iraqi forces, or calling in precision strikes from aircraft flying above. In fact, the most recent version of our capstone doctrine document, AFDD 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, Organization, and Command, recognizes this changing nature of airpower by defining it as the ability to project military power or influence through the control and exploitation of air, space, and cyberspace to achieve strategic, operational, or tactical objectives. General of the Air Force Henry Hap Arnold offered sage counsel when he declared that we must think in terms of tomorrow. A large part of airpower s tomorrow will take place in the emerging operational domain of cyberspace. Rapid advancement in computer and communication technologies, as well as the tight coupling of the digital domain to physical operations, makes cyberspace increasingly important to military success. The challenges presented by cyberspace reflect its global nature, the political sovereignties it transcends, and the fact that operations take place at the speed of light. By no stretch of the imagination does the United States enjoy the clear, asymmetrical advantage in cyberspace that we do in the land, sea, air, and space domains.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA566686
Entities
People
- David S. Fadok
- Richard A. Raines
Organizations
- Air University